Generally there exists a variety of different stacked assemblies and structures in the context of electronics and electronic products.
The motivation behind the integration of electronics and related products may be as diverse as the related use contexts. Relatively often size savings, weight savings, material savings, cost savings, performance gain or just efficient cramming of components is sought for when the resulting solution ultimately exhibits a multilayer nature. In turn, the associated use scenarios may relate to product packages or food casings, visual design of device housings, wearable electronics, personal electronic devices, displays, detectors or sensors, vehicle interiors, antennae, labels, vehicle electronics, furniture, etc.
Electronics such as electronic components, ICs (integrated circuit), and conductors, may be generally provided onto a substrate element by a plurality of different techniques. For example, ready-made electronics such as various surface mount devices (SMD) may be mounted on a substrate surface that ultimately forms an inner or outer interface layer of a multilayer structure. Additionally, technologies falling under the term “printed electronics” may be applied to actually produce electronics directly and essentially additively to the associated substrate. The term “printed” refers in this context to various printing techniques capable of producing electronics/electrical elements from the printed matter, including but not limited to screen printing, flexography, and inkjet printing, through a substantially additive printing process. The used substrates may be flexible and printed materials organic, which is however, not always the case.
A substrate such as a circuit board or even plastic film may be provided with electronics and overmolded by plastics so as to establish a multilayer structure with the electronics at least partially embedded in the molded layer. Accordingly the electronics may be concealed from the environment and protected against environmental conditions such as moisture, physical shocks, or dust, whereas the molded layer may further have various additional uses in terms of aesthetics, transfer medium, dimensioning, etc.
In terms of ecological thinking and sustainable development, however, many commonly used materials may be sub-optimum as they may contribute considerable additional stress to the environment with reference to associated challenges in waste management due to e.g. slow biodegradation and laborious recyclability. Yet, often aesthetically relatively artificial, cold or dull-looking traditional materials may not fit all use purposes equally well, considering e.g. scenarios where electronics-containing structure shall directly face e.g. use environment and users, being visible to them. Further, in some scenarios electrical or electronic functionality should be brought into maximally close proximity to the use environment, whereupon placing aesthetically more pleasant masking layers on top of e.g. traditional, underlying circuit board hosting electronics is not a preferred solution. Besides, it easily unnecessarily adds to the overall thickness or weight of the solution, which is in many use cases to be avoided if possible.